OCEANSIDE: Recall issues debated in television forum

Public safety top topic in effort to boot Councilman Jerry Kern

Spending cuts in public safety and the very reasoning behind an
effort to recall Oceanside City Councilman Jerry Kern were
discussed in a series of volatile exchanges between those arguing
for and against the recall during a televised forum Thursday.

Supporting the recall, Councilwoman Esther Sanchez said Kern
must go because he has led a council majority in supporting
spending cuts that put people's lives at risk and backing other
measures that were not in the public's interest.

The co-chairman of Citizens Against the Recall Effort, David
Shore, said the recall was unwarranted because Kern has done
nothing illegal or improper.

Shore said the recall is supported by public safety labor groups
who want to replace Kern with someone more sympathetic to them as
they begin negotiations for a new contract. The current contracts
with the labor associations representing firefighters and police
officers expire in December.

"The real issue is the pension funds, not public safety," Shore
said.

Sanchez and Shore appeared on KOCT-TV's hour-long Journalist
Roundtable program answering questions posed by North County Times
editor Kent Davy and Logan Jenkins, a columnist for The San Diego
Union-Tribune.

Voters will be asked two questions on the Dec. 8 recall ----
should Kern be removed from office and who among three candidates
should replace him if the recall succeeds. Those who vote no on the
recall question may still vote for a candidate.

Kern's term expires a year from now.

Sanchez said dumping Kern is urgent even with so little time
left in his four-year term because the council majority led by Kern
"are absolutely making public safety last, not first."

As proof, Sanchez said, Kern joined councilmen Rocky Chavez and
Jack Feller in accepting spending cuts recommended by City Manager
Peter Weiss that included laying off police support workers and
initially included taking one of the city's four ambulances out of
service most of the year.

"(Kern) was the one who made the motion to cut the ambulance,"
Sanchez said.

Weiss removed the ambulance from his recommended cuts when the
council voted on them Oct. 21 to help plug a two-year $10 million
budget deficit.

Sanchez said the ambulance could still be at risk and faulted
Kern for going along Weiss' initial recommendation to cut it. She
said Kern was willing to take the ambulance out of service while
keeping more than $1 million in the budget for landscaping and
other improvements to Oceanside Boulevard.

"Jerry Kern from the very beginning has been attacking our
public safety," Sanchez said.

Shore accused Sanchez and others backing the recall of using
scare tactics and misleading voters. He said the $500,000 cost of
the election could be better spent on city needs.

Shore said improving Oceanside Boulevard was a matter of public
safety because it would bring pride to the surrounding
neighborhoods and lead people to take an interest in their
community.

"We'll see improved community safety," Shore said."You can't
have a safe community with officers alone."

Besides, he said, if the city didn't spend the money improving
Oceanside Boulevard, it would lose matching money from TransNet, a
regional half-cent sales tax.

Sanchez said Kern's campaign to beat the recall is being
financed primarily by developers, many of them from outside
Oceanside.

Shore said he didn't know where the Kern campaign got its money
or who was financing the recall, but said published newspaper
reports attributed the funding to organized labor groups.

Sanchez at one point accused Kern of conducting business for the
county Republican Party from his City Council office. She said she
has not filed a formal complaint against him with the Fair
Political Practices Committee, but has urged a witness to file a
complaint. She declined to name the witness.

Shore said the accusation was "hearsay."

Sanchez also warned that the city's rent control ordinance
protecting mobile home residents could be in danger if Kern stays
in office. She said the evidence was in Kern's failure in 2008 to
support a city resolution in support of a ballot measure to
preserve rent control and against a competing measure which would
have phased out rent control.

Shore said that if Kern wanted to dismantle rent control, he
would have acted on it when he was first elected. He said Kern,
Chavez and Feller didn't want the city involved in state
issues.